Today on The Owner Seat, host Albert Ramos goes straight at the finance problem that’s about to wreck margins for a lot of operators in 2026:

Usage-based pricing + AI spend + “I’ll check it at month-end” finance.

Our guest is Catherine Neuman, Co-Founder of SpendPilot — the ambient finance layer built to stop reactive chaos and give owners real-time visibility into spend, risk, and performance before it hits the P&L.

Catherine has held strategic finance + operations roles at Apple, Novo, and Butter Payments — and now she’s building one of the most important finance products of the AI era.

She’s also not afraid to say the quiet part out loud:If you’re deploying AI tools without real-time spend controls, you’re not scaling… you’re leaking.

In this episode, we unpack:

1. Why founders & franchise owners are getting crushed by usage-based pricing leaks
2. What LLM operations actually cost — and why Finance (not just Engineering) needs to own it
3. Tokenization, model selection, and the hidden costs nobody budgets for
4. Why real-time spend visibility is now mandatory, not optional
5. The early warning signs of margin erosion — and how to protect unit economics before it’s too late

If you’re an operator using AI tools, paying for software, or trying to scale without getting surprised by your bank balance…This is required listening.

📊 Work with Albert — Fractional CFO for Fitness & Wellness

I’m Albert Ramos, Fractional CFO and Founder of Stratego Intel Consulting.

I help fitness, wellness, and franchise brands ($500K–$30M) fix messy multi-location books, build 13-week cash visibility, and prove unit economics across every location.

👉 Book a CFO Strategy Call

https://calendly.com/albertramosjr-strategointel/youtube-podcast

📘 Free Resource — Stratego CFO Playbook (Fitness & Wellness)

Get the exact framework I use with owners and franchisors:

1. 13-week cash flow structure
2. Location-level unit economics
3. Core KPI dashboard for studios
4. Owner Seat finance rhythm you can actually run

🔗 Download: https://forms.gle/DppjbHQvkF2yV3Vd9🎙

More from The Owner Seat

The Owner Seat is where fitness, wellness & HALO owners talk cash flow, growth, and the messy middle.

New episodes every Monday & Friday at 8:00 AM CST.

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🌐 Learn More

Stratego (Fractional CFO): https://www.StrategoIntel.com

Connect with Albert on LinkedIn: / albertramosjr